Orlando, FL (Oct. 1, 2014) – Are you an overworked laser safety officer (LSO) in a high-pressure commercial or research facility? Need to make vital hazard analysis calculations on the fly? Look no further than the Evaluator — the Laser Institute of America’s industry-first web-based system that helps you quickly and easily ensure a laser-safe environment.
Now updated to reflect the changes in the 2014 version of the ANSI Z136.1 parent standard for laser safety, the Evaluator provides LSOs of all skill levels a robust yet easy-to-use online system for calculating potential laser hazards. Still using the 2007 version of ANSI Z136.1? No problem: The ability to perform calculations under those criteria has been retained in the new version as well.
This unique tool features three subscription levels — basic, intermediate and advanced — to allow you to pay only for the features you need.
• Basic: Designed for users with minimal experience, the Basic package provides the essential and fundamental laser hazard calculations in an easy and simple format.
• Intermediate: Our most popular subscription level, the Intermediate package provides the best solution for industrial applications and organizations where laser safety calculations are needed for eye and skin hazards.
• Advanced: Perfect for the professional LSO working in research facilities, government, military and advanced laboratories, the Advanced subscription level includes all the most comprehensive features available for performing sophisticated laser calculations.
Users have found that the Advanced level of the Evaluator packs a lot of muscle. Its interactive interface and sophisticated calculations allow users to change laser settings (CW, single- or repetitive-pulse) and adjust beam profile — even experiment with eyewear and barrier combinations. Other top-tier features include source size, laser database, range, aided viewing, atmospheric attenuation, limiting aperture, optical density at range and graphs.
The Evaluator has proved to be an invaluable resource and the latest version features an updated interface to make navigating all the Evaluator’s features more user-friendly.
What makes the Evaluator a must-have for the LSO? “The simplicity of the software, the graphics, the reports it can generate, and the fact that it is a ‘living’ piece of software,” says LIA Education Director Gus Anibarro. “We can and will always be upgrading the software over time. There is no need to pay for upgrades and new versions.” To ensure accuracy, “we would run several trials with problem sets that we had calculated by hand to see how the software would process the information.”
And, the Evaluator will always reflect the latest guidelines of the ANSI Z136.1 Safe Use of Lasers standard. The 2014 version of the standard features new maximum permissible exposure limits (MPEs), new definitions and newly rewritten sections. Briefly, the ANSI Z136.1-2014 features:
• A significant increase in allowed exposure levels for wavelengths between 1.2 µm and 1.4 µm, and a slight decrease in exposure limits for pulses shorter than approximately 10 µs.
• The degradation of optics transmission in the UV and NIR in the analysis of hazard classification of lasers.
• 19 new definitions of key terms, including administrative control measure, beam divergence, beam waist, saturable absorption and visible luminous transmission.
• An updated section on “special qualifications” for medical-related exposures to include MPEs expressed in terms of illuminance, which is expressed in terms of units of troland.
The Evaluator goes a long way toward making the professional LSO’s life easier. Not only does the Evaluator allow users to generate time-saving reports, the advanced version enables users to save their laser specifications on the Evaluator server and download reports in a PDF format.
For the LSO on the go, the Evaluator is accessible on most mobile devices and across Mac and PC operating systems. Calculations are performed on the Evaluator’s constantly updated server, so your computer’s performance does not affect the speed at which your analyses are performed.
To learn more about the features in the basic, intermediate and advanced levels of the Evaluator — and choose the subscription that is right for you — visit www.LSEval.org.
About LIA
The Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the professional society for laser applications and safety serving the industrial, educational, medical, research and government communities throughout the world since 1968. www.lia.org, 13501 Ingenuity Drive, Ste 128, Orlando, FL 32826, +1.407.380.1553.
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